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This thesis analyses transaction costs emergence and impact within the Nicaraguan coffee istry under the Sandinista Regime (1979-1990). It is argued that traditional transaction cost economics requires adjustment to be successfiilly applied in developing countries since it gnores the role of governmental policies and institutional change. Although North linked transaction costs to economic development theories, it is yet not clear how these influence particular industrial an:angements. A framework combining Williamson's and North's theories is therefore devised to explain industry evolution in a developing economy by taking into account both power relations and incentives structures.

The focus of large-scale e-business development has shifted to the large 'blue-chip' corporations. However, large companies not only have to tackle a new technology that could permeate the entire organisation and along its supply chain, but they have to deal with new business models, revised processes, additional marketing channels, mounting cost pressures, and heightened service expectations from customers. This is particularly difficult for large multinationals that span the globe with their rigid bureaucratic structures, elaborate power networks, and ingrained cultural properties. Hence, the aim of this research is to investigate how the introduction of e-business interacts with the existing structures of a large established company. Structures are interpreted as rules and resources, which are the medium and outcome of human actions. It is argued that the introduction of e-business constitutes a significant technology-driven organisational change and a review of the literature reveals an absence of such studies in e-business. In order to capture a comprehensive and dynamic understanding of how organisations undergo such a change, this research applies structuration theory as a meta-theory to explore the relationship between agents and structure, using an interpretive qualitative paradigm. An extensive longitudinal case study examines the establishment, operation and termination of a special-purpose e-business unit, named ConsumerConnect-Europe (CCE), at the European corporate headquarters of the Ford Motor Company. This thesis provides a narrative of the entire life cycle of CCE, focusing on its business-to-consumer division. The narrative is analysed in detail using structuration theory with its concerns for the dimensions of signification, domination and legitimation. The discussion initially addresses the research sub-questions related directly to the case study and then turns to the main research question: how does the introduction of e-business interact with the existing structures of large established companies. In answering this, it examines the broader natures of e-business, human agency in organisational change, organisational structures, and the duality of organisational change. These natures form the content of contributions and are linked to the theoretical and practical contributions of the thesis. Methodological contributions are primarily in the operationalisation of structuration theory.

How does strategic change happen, and how is it understood around technology? This ethnographic research has sought to better understand this process, from a structurational, cognitive and practice perspective. Researchers have shown that change is a continuous and ongoing process (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002; Weick and Quinn, 1999), while others have shown that change, while not determinate, can be intentional and directed to a large extent by change agents in practice (Balogun and Johnson, 2004; Whittington, 1992, 2006; Pettigrew, 1992; Johnson, 1990; Jarzabkowski, 2003). On a more macro level, Giddens has shown that the process of social organising, or structuration, happens through iterative and recursive production and reproduction of structure through communicated action (Giddens, 1979, 1984) which many authors have gone on to research in relation to technological change (Orlikowski, 1992, 1996, 2000; Barley, 1986; Pozzebon and Pinsonneault, 2002; Walsham, 2002, Heracleous and Barrett, 2001). However, it is also known that much to do with change happens cognitively, where the participants in change must reinterpret and adapt their mental frameworks to adjust to something new. (Huff and Huff, 2000; Davidson, 2006; Kaplan and Tripsas, 2005; Balogun and Johnson, 2004). This research seeks to align these concepts, by starting from the notion that continuous, iterative and recursive change in practice can be intentionally directed on a cognitive level. It then further explores the role that the cognitive activities of change recipients, and organisational structures such as technology, play in this process. Specifically, this research has explored a case where strategic change was made to occur in the context of a new technology implementation. It is grounded in a longitudinal, qualitative, practice based case study which followed the implementation of a Sales Force Automation system. Change was examined under a structurational lens and then operationalised through the identification of schemata. The study looks at how the new technology was perceived and used over time by participants in the change programme as it progressed. It is presented in narrative form, where a Literature Review and Methodology comprise Project I of the DBA, and the First and Second Order Analyses comprise Projects II and III. Data have been based principally upon 42 recorded interviews with 14 people gathered over 2½ years during 4 different time periods. The analysis is also supplemented with information from surveys, statistics on the technology and its usage, and contextual information that was collected by the author, who was employed at the company during the period studied and managed the global technology project. All of the change recipients interviewed were sales people with separate sales territories—they interacted more with the technology, with customers, and with other parts of the business, than with each other, and they were given relative flexibility regarding whether, when and where to use the new system. This study has explored the notion that schemata can consist of both perceived structures and mental actions, implying that they are structurational dualities held cognitively. It is then argued that the dualities held by the change recipients, over time, were themselves juxtaposed, and that it was this iterative and recursive mental juxtaposition that was a fundamental step in creating a strategic change process. Additionally, the analysis proposes that there were some basic measures taken in the course of strategically changing the individual and group schemata in Logico that can be seen differently under a cognitive and structurational lens, including the definition of time and episodes and the manner in which attention was focused on the new system. Finally, the study explores the phenomena in this case from a perspective of Strategy as Practice, by taking a holistic view of some of the practices, praxis, and practitioners involved in this strategic change. Understanding this cognitive and recursive process better can help organisations to manage strategic change in a way that works with changing mental frameworks and contextual situations over time. It also contributes to our knowledge of how strategic outcomes are iteratively shaped by the adopters of new technology when deliberate strategising initiatives take the form of technological innovation.

This thesis explores the nature of organisational change and proposes that the majority of change programmes are unsuccessful due to their interventionist orientation. The inherent complexity of organisational change is such that the change needs to be understood from a range of perspectives and that many factors need to be fully integrated if the change is to be managed effectively. The original proposition was a vertically integrated methodology called the Five Dimensions of Change that stratified and integrated organisational activity from strategic planning to operational processes. This was fundamentally a prescriptive and positivistic model of change management, that was subsequently developed into a more interpretive, question-based approach called the Six Dimensions of Change, which included a focus on the person-centred and socio- cultural aspects of an organisation and proposed a more integrated and generative methodology. This approach was further refined to encompass the critical learning of the author that a change agent must take full cognisance of the personal and symbiotic relationship they have with the change programme. This holistically integrative methodology is explored through the use of the DNA helix, representing the importance of direction, task focus, people focus and the nature of engagement of the change agent. Three case studies explore the development and refinement of the methodology and these are explored from three perspectives: researcher, change agent andlearner, thus providing epistemological relativism and ensuring that the essential elements of action, learning and research were the focus of the work. Action Learning was central to the development, and critically to the refinement, of the integrative methodology and this is documented within the thesis, as is the personal and professional development of the author. Action Learning Sets provided opportunity for constant challenge and critical evaluation of the work and resulted in a significant personal exploration of the manner in which the author as a change agent interacts and engages with a change programme.

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The South African Post Office is investing large amounts of money in IT. Organisations were encouraged by the notion that investing in IT correlates with higher returns and the delivery of expected results by replacing the human component in organisations. The employment of IT within business has often resulted in the replacement of old problems with new and the expected business benefits of IT not realised. The primary research objective was to determine the relationship between IT expenditure and the financial performance of a firm. The secondary research objective was to explore the perceived value of IT investment in SAPO. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / MBL

The South African Post Office is investing large amounts of money in IT. Organisations were encouraged by the notion that investing in IT correlates with higher returns and the delivery of expected results by replacing the human component in organisations. The employment of IT within business has often resulted in the replacement of old problems with new and the expected business benefits of IT not realised. The primary research objective was to determine the relationship between IT expenditure and the financial performance of a firm. The secondary research objective was to explore the perceived value of IT investment in SAPO. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / MBL

This study explored the processes of innovation among innovative rural manufacturing SMEs by using the narratives of the owner/mangers of case study firms and other actors involved in the innovation process. This was consistent with the ontology of critical realism that was selected which entailed the use of case study method as a tool for data collection. This study makes a number of incremental rather than radical contributions to innovation theory and our understanding of innovation among rural Manufacturing SMEs. The results of this study shows the importance of opinions of owner/managers in the measurement of innovation considering that the majority were either unaware of the need to register their innovation and the lack of support organizations in rural areas who can advice SMEs on the need for patents and the registration process. Regarding the characteristics of innovation in rural areas, the results showed that rural innovative SMEs are likely to be relatively strong in innovations where effects of scale are not yet important but where they can make use of their flexibility and proximity to market demand. The results of this study showed that SMEs received ideas for their innovations from various sources located both within and outside the case study area. The firms then used different approaches to develop their innovations including internalised design and externalised manufacturing, externalised design and internalised manufacturing, and internalised both design and manufacturing. Lastly, rurality did not appear to constrain the processes of innovation since SMEs had developed strategies that enabled them to adapt and adjust to their rural environment in order to remain innovative.